Things are slowly returning to normal as health care authorities start to work through the backlog in surgeries and procedures postponed during the recent Omicron outbreak.

Health care professionals shifted priorities during the outbreak to lend a hand in vaccination clinics while ORs slowed during the holiday period and the weeks thereafter.

Health Minister John Haggie says emergency surgeries, cancer treatments and other emergency services went ahead as usual throughout the outbreak with a minor setback due to the cyber attack in the fall.

In the meantime, Haggie says the health authorities are working their way through the Omicron backlog.

He says while there is some variation among the health authorities, the one major pressure point is endoscopies, which have not yet returned to pre-outbreak operations. Haggie has been told that Eastern Health will have worked through the backlog of procedures in the next two to three months.